Mad Max: Fury Road hits theaters next month, but with 30 years separating the upcoming film from the last installment of the franchise (1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), it’s reasonable to expect that quite a few people might not be familiar with the exploits of “Mad” Max Rockatansky. Warner Bros. Pictures seems well aware of this possibility, and has released a cool video featurette that offers viewers a nice primer on the post-apocalyptic adventures of the franchise’s titular hero.
The video clocks in at just under three minutes, and splices together some of the key moments from director George Miller’s franchise-starting 1979 film Mad Max, its 1981 sequel The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2), and 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Along with providing a good look back at the mayhem that unfolded over the course of the three original films, it also serves as a nice reminder of how the franchise made a star out of a little-known actor named Mel Gibson back in the day.
Co-written and directed by Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road casts Tom Hardy as the new face of Mad Max, the former police officer who prowls the wastelands doing his best to survive in a harsh, post-apocalyptic world where resources are scarce and deadly, scavenging marauders are plentiful.
Hardy is joined in the cast by Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron (Monster), who plays a woman certain that salvation lies on the other side of the desert, as well as Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Days of Future Past), Nathan Jones (Conan the Barbarian), Zoe Kravitz (Divergent), Riley Keough (The Runaways), and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (Transformers: Dark of the Moon). Australian actor Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the vicious thug Toecutter in the original Mad Max, returns to the franchise as the Fury Road‘s terrifying antagonist, Immortan Joe.
Mad Max: Fury Road hits both standard and 3D theaters May 15, 2015.
